This new approach to a traditional script is intended to counter the dominance of rigid, staccato-like effects of straight verticals and horizontals in earlier types and many existing fonts.
Together, these details reveal an original hand and provide a contemporary approach that is clean, clear and comfortable to read whether in short or long passages of text. To achieve a dynamic, fluid style the design features a rounded treatment of distinguishing terminals and stroke reversals, open counters that also aid legibility at smaller sizes, and delicately flaring strokes. The construction of the letters is based on traditional penmanship but possesses less stroke contrast than many Devanagari types, in order to maintain strong, legible forms at smaller sizes. Adobe Devanagari was designed to be highly readable in a range of situations including quite small sizes in spreadsheets and in continuous text setting, as well as at display sizes, where the full character of the typeface reveals itself. The design brief was to produce a typeface for modern business communications in Hindi and other languages, to be legible both in print and on screen. The types were officially released in 2010. The Adobe Devanagari typefaces were commissioned from Tiro Typeworks and collaboratively designed by Tim Holloway, Fiona Ross and John Hudson, beginning in 2005.
